The current schedule at Homestead allows students to take up to seven half-credit classes in a given semester. Teachers teach six periods per day, up from the five that they taught three years ago, a change implemented as a cost savings measure. While the current schedule is familiar to all of us—in fact, we adults may have attended high schools that employed a similar or identical schedule—many at Homestead have raised questions about the manner in which we currently organize our time. Does an arrangement in which teachers carry a load of six classes per day (coupled with increasing class sizes) allow them to be their best for students on an everyday basis? Does the current seven-period day structure afford students sufficient opportunities to enroll in classes of interest to them? Does the current schedule best allow students to balance their increasingly full schedules, which include academics, co-curricular activities and sports, community service, jobs, and the like? The list goes on.
Considering these questions and many others, the HSST identified three primary features of any possible schedule: (1) it facilitates collaboration among teachers during the school day, (2 ) it alleviates the professional challenges associated with teaching six classes per day, and (3) it addresses students’ needs as learners, allowing the maintenance or improvement of school-wide student achievement. These considerations--along with the question of cost neutrality--are the filters through which all schedule ideas or suggestions must pass. The three criteria help to keep us focused on our most pressing needs as we continue to investigate the options available to us.
